Telangana asks CWC to stop AP's Godvari-Banakacharla project
![Telangana asks CWC to stop APs Godvari-Banakacharla project Telangana asks CWC to stop APs Godvari-Banakacharla project](https://www.deccanchronicle.com/h-upload/2024/10/29/1870820-telanganagovernment.webp)
Hyderabad: Telangana on Wednesday urged the Central Water Commission (CWC) to stop Andhra Pradesh from going ahead with the Godavari-Banakacharla link project, saying the proposal violates inter-state river water sharing and was illegal as the increased use of Godavari water goes against all existing permissions that AP has.
In a letter to CWC, Godavari and Krishna river management boards, Telangana’s irrigation principal secretary Rahul Bojja said AP was planning to move 2 tmc ft of water a day through the Godavari-Banakacharla link project.
Andhra Pradesh, Rahul said in his letter, as part of the new project, was planning to raise the capacity of the Polavaram project right canal from 17,500 cusecs (cubic feet per second) to 38,000 cusecs, and reminded that AP has permissions only for using 12,252 cusecs capacity of the canal.
It may be recalled that Telangana irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy had previously written to Union water resources minister C.R. Patil, and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressing Telangana’s opposition to AP’ s new project.
Rahul, in his letter, said as per the Bachawat Tribunal Award for the unified AP state, the erstwhile combined state of AP had the rights to use water entering Godavari from its tributaries in the state and as per these rights, projects that can use 1,486 tmc ft were taken up. However, no accounting has been done for 86 tmc ft, an issue that still remains contentious between residuary AP and Telangana, and in light of this, AP’s plans to use more of Godavari water cannot be permitted.
He urged the GRMB to ask AP to submit a detailed project report for the Godavari-Banakacharla link project so this issue can be discussed in detail at the next GRMB meeting.